Titanium Bits
by MysticWaterWolf
Summary: A collection of one shots and short works that ties in with my story: Stronger Than Titanium, The Bonds of Brothers. It's not required to read it to understand the main story but, it will add to the fun of reading it. It shall be marked as complete since each one shot or short read is complete upon upload.
1. Easy As Making a Cake

**Sooo yeah,** **Stronger Than Titanium, The Bonds of Brothers is starting to get big enough to qualify (in my eyes at least) to have a place for it's own random series of one-shots. They will be mostly shots from before they left Dawn Island, as I wanted to get them off to sea in my main story ASAP and little plot bunnies that wouldn't fit into the way they story shall unfold or you know, things I thought up after that fact.**

 **I'll take requests and do as many as I can. I'll also give you an idea of when/if and why these one shots happened. You don't need to read them to understand what's going on in the main story but, it will probably add to the fun of reading it.**

 **This one is set before the brothers set out to sea and a little bit before Bluejam came to their island.**

* * *

Why Ace is never, ever allowed to cook again.

Ever.

And

Why Luffy is never, ever allowed to help Ace cook again.

Ever.

* * *

Sabo stood at the entrance to the brothers tree house home, trying desperately to remember that he loved his brothers and didn't really want to kill them. It was a hard thing to remember given the state of their home.

Their kitchen is the first room you enter, as it was better to be able to bring their catches and other food strait to the kitchen, rather than to drag it all the way through their home.

Right now, their kitchen was the biggest mess Sabo had ever seen it in and he'd only left them alone for two hours to pick up some supplies from the bandits.

Smoke was still drifting out the open window and a terrible burnt smell filled the air in the room.

" **What. Did. You. Do**!?" Sabo asked in a strained voice.

Their small, wood fueled, oven door was open and... what could only at this point and time be called a substance had set on the wire rank and oven bottom with a consistency only found, until now, in cement.

In front and to the side of the oven stood Ace. He was grinning, rather worriedly and holding a pan. Their only pan. It looked like it had a brownish rock fused inside it.

"Uh... Well, um making a cake." Ace's reply sounded more like a question that was left hanging there, like a hangman's noose.

"I helped!" Luffy cheered. He was standing at the counter with what looked like every dish they had sitting on it, covered in various forms of yuck. Something that Sabo didn't even want to try and identify was dripping on the floor.

"Making a- how do you even know how to bake a cake!?" Sabo could feel a headache coming on .

"Out of a book, you always said I needed to read more. They have books just for telling you how to cook things! You've been holding out on me!" Ace accused. "You could have mentioned that, reading wouldn't have been nearly as boring."

Sabo groaned, wishing he had thought of that when he was trying to get Luffy and Ace to improve their reading skills. Although, given the results of Ace's effort to cook something it might be just as well it didn't occur to him.

Another thought occurred to Sabo. "Where did you even find flour?"

Ace and Luffy gave him a rather odd look. "There's loads of flowers out in the jungle. It wasn't that hard to find enough to fit in our two of our cups." Ace told him.

"I helped pick them!" Luffy added, hopping up and down.

Sabo smacked his forehead, not doing his oncoming headache any favors with the move. "No, not flowers. F-L-O-U-R. It's not that same as- oh never mind." Sabo gave up trying to explain in the face of his brothers uncomprehending looks. "I don't suppose you used hens eggs in the recipe either."

"That's not fair!" Ace exclaimed. "The book didn't say what _kind_ of eggs, just three large eggs. So, we got some anaconda eggs."

Sabo sighed. That was probably true. The author of the book couldn't have imagined anyone like Ace would ever read the book let alone try and use it. He really didn't want to know anything else that his brothers did to the 'cake', he didn't think his sanity could take anymore.

"I brought back a bunch more!" Luffy informed them.

"You did what!? Where are they?" Ace shouted.

"More eggs, more cake! I put them in the living room." Luffy told him.

"Luffy, those other eggs had a live baby snake in them! That's why I said we couldn't bring them!" Ace exclaimed, heading for the living room with Sabo hot on his heels.

"So, we get to eat the egg twice then." Luffy said as he followed after his brothers.

There was plenty of egg shell in the living room, all broken and cracked. No sign there was however, of the baby anacondas that were inside them.

For months afterwards on occasion, when the brothers opened something a small anaconda would come slithering out. It would lead to Sabo shouting at his brothers all over again while they tried to get the snake out of their house since it was too small to eat. Never after this were Ace or Luffy allowed to cook anything more complicated than meat.


	2. Easy As Taking a Pencil to Paper

**As you all probably know, the next chapter for Stronger Than Titanium has been delayed and I was going to take a wee break and do some writing over here.**

 **FireD Rin, this one's for you. The 'reading and writing' request you had is in. Any more requests, you guys know where to leave them. Either in the reviews or PM me.**

 **Catlover4536, Thanks for reviewing. Yes, ::sninkers:: Ace and Luffy can cause a lot of trouble and that can only be topped when all three of them are out causing mayhem. PS. love the name, may I ask how many cats you have?**

 **FireD. Rin, thanks for reviewing. You can continue to leave requests here or PM me if you prefer. Either way is fine with me. I probably will do something with Ace reveling his heritage to them, most likely a two part since Ace told Sabo first(in the cannon and then Sabo accidentally let it slip to Luffy, or something like that) and then Luffy found out after.**

 **Wolf Riddle, aww yes and more cuteness. I like popping over here to write cuteness since things are not so cute right now in the main story.**

* * *

"No! Luffy don't eat the pencil!" Sabo half shouted.

His logic for working on Ace and Luffy's reading and writing skills seemed so... well, logical at the time.

"But, I'm Hungry!" Luffy complained.

Ace had taught them how to hunt, fight, and live in the jungle, among other helpful skills. Ace could figure out how to make and repair things. Ace and Sabo had traded knowledge about pick-pocketing. Luffy was hopeless at it but he did prove to be a great distraction, making pick-pocketing all the easier for the two brothers.

"We just had lunch three hours ago!" Sabo retorted.

Luffy... Luffy had showed them how to care for someone, how to support each other and be a family. He showed them what it was like to not be alone and have a real family that loved you no matter what and always looked out for you without any kind of selfish motive behind it. A family made up of people you wanted to be with and not because society said you should and it was what was expected. A family that let you be yourself and love you for it. It was something that he and Ace craved and yet didn't know they wanted it until they met Luffy.

Other than some practical advice on what plants to eat after the mushroom fiasco and what medicines were good for different ailments, Sabo felt like he hadn't done enough for his brothers.

"But, I'm hungry _now_!" Luffy whined.

It was during a trip up to high town, with all the fancy shops, that Sabo realized his brothers could not read. They would look at the signs over the shops in confusion before turning to Sabo. Luffy could make out a few syllables, enough to know that someone had at one point worked at teaching him.

Ace was completely lost. He pretended that it didn't bother him, saying that 'reading was stupid and a waste of time' but, Sabo could see plain that it did bother him.

"Ace, don't put so much pressure on the pencil, you'll keep breaking the tip off."

So, Sabo had taken it upon himself to teach his brothers to read and write efficiently.

"You can wait a bit longer, Luffy. Then we'll get something to eat." Sabo said

Both Luffy and Ace grumbled in protest but went back to their writing practice.

Getting either of his brothers to sit still long enough to practice reading had been a challenge until he found that Luffy could be bribed to do it with meat.

Sabo found it harder to get Ace to start reading until he pointed out that Luffy would learn more than Ace and he wasn't about to be outdone by his little brother on such a 'stupid' thing as reading and writing.

Writing was proving to be more difficult.

"No Luffy, try holding the pencil like this. It's not a pipe."

Luffy's rubber abilities tended to cause his pencil to be everywhere except on the paper.

Ace was alternating between looking at the paper as though it mortally offended him and glaring at the pencil in his right had as if it were the root of all evil.

 _Pencil in his right hand..._

A thought slowly formed in Sabo's mind. He, himself was right-handed but, was Ace left or right handed? He tried to think...

The more he thought about it...

The more amazed Sabo became...

He couldn't believe he hadn't realized until now. Ace alternated the use of his hands. He wasn't left-handed or right-handed. Ace used both with equal dexterity.

Ace held a pipe in his right hand but, liked to use a knife in his left. He would use a fork, kitchen knife, or spoon in either hand and sometimes held a fork in one hand and a spoon in the other, only now did Sabo realize that Ace didn't swap out the fork for the soon or vice-versa but kept on eating as he was.

"Why the hell do you need capital letters and lower case ones!?" Ace exclaimed.

Sabo sighed and put the thoughts of his new found revelation to one side. Ace's question Sabo knew, would lead to an argument. Ace hated having to follow any kind of rules without good reason and this wouldn't be considered good enough in Ace's opinion.

Maybe a snack wasn't such a bad idea


End file.
